Rev. Eric Jackson comes to Syracuse with his wife of seven months, Darnisa Amante-Jackson.
Darnisa is originally from Brooklyn, NY and is a second generation Brooklynite. Her grandparents migrated north from Virginia and South Carolina in the 1940s and 50s. She attended Brandeis University in Waltham, MA, graduating with bachelor and master’s degrees in Anthropology. She also holds a bachelor’s degree in History with minors in French and Afro/American Studies.
Darnisa returned to New York City to teach 4th grade and founded her first company, a tutoring and test prep company called No Dreams Deferred. You can find her featured in the documentary Tested, about standardized testing.
Eric and Darnisa met when she returned to Massachusetts for graduate studies in educational leadership at Harvard’s graduate school of education earning her Ed.L.D. degree.
Darnisa is the co-founder and current President of DEEP: Disruptive Equity Education Project, a consulting organization that supports schools, communities, and nonprofits in doing the powerful cultural work of dismantling racism and inequity. DEEP currently supports over 80 organizations (including schools and nonprofits) in 9 states.
Outside of her passion and zeal to remove racism from our country’s narrative, Darnisa is a avid fitness enthusiast, voracious reader, lover of all things cooking, and dog mom to their wonderful 2.5 year old mini poodle, Scooter.